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Well, after almost 2 months of parading ads on our blog, the AdSense team (the portion of Google that provides the ad service) has determined that the "clicks" on our ads were invalid. I don't know what that means, and they don't explain. We feel used (and not in a good way).
However, after "earning" $50 over the two months, which they didn't pay, we were very disappointed. I actually got into the habit of checking the account each day and being excited to learn that we had earned 70 cents or so. But that ended when, out of the blue, they cancelled our account with no warning. Suffice it to say that we have removed the ads and have joined the numerous people who are disenfranchised with Google AdSense. After canceling our account, they would have left the ads on, so I had to remove them, myself. You can read some other complaints here and also here.
So for all you purists out there that felt we were "selling out" by allowing crass materialistic ads to appear on our pristine blog, you should be very happy. We have learned our lesson and would not try and use an ad program, especially AdSense, again. Except for the powerful name backing them, it would seem to be a scam.
Twenty-five dollars a month would not appear to be a large amount, but we could have enjoyed a dinner at our local restaurant. So I will have to content ourselves with an ad-free blog and homemade tacos.
5 comments:
Hello Wally,
A friend of mine faced a similar problem last month. He said that over the last months the ads were erratic at to say the least. Although JavaScript was present in the code of the home page, the ad appeared only rarely.
He contacted Google Adsense to get help and after having completed the mandatory questionnaire, the response was: "see the forum". In other words, help yourself!
So he disabled the use of the WordPress plugin that handles the ads and integrated Google Adsense code directly. At the same day the got an email stating that his Adsense account had been cancelled.
He is not happy because actually he started to have some income to cash (not much, less than 50 €).
He thinks that he has not violated the rules. He filed up a claim, but I personally think that it will certainly end up as the request for help… :o)
It seems that there is an investigation being carried out by the European Commission on this service… but I don’t know the reason.
Rgds,
Geraldo
Sorry to hear this - but glad you're getting the word out.
I remember someone posting a blog long ago about the wonderful Abitab card where you could pay your property taxes and get points for merchandise.
I got one, and after paying bills at Abitab with the Abitab card for six months - plus property taxes - asked my balance.
Zero.
I tore up the card and pushed it through the slot. Then I told the guy - oh yeah, it was Wally - about it and he said, oh no we gave up on that; the 'rewards' the offer are BS (exact wording may have been different).
Scammers! Peculators! (learned that word yesterday ;-)
~ doc
My Day In Uruguay
So that explains how Google, a company in a nickel and dime business got to be worth billions!
I'm sorry to say that you may have breached their terms and conditions when you talked about how the ads would help your income,
they could interpret it as "encouraging your visitors to fake click" the ads.
I KNOW this wasn't the idea and I know you weren't trying to force or compel anyone to click.
In fact maybe some good intentioned friends may have provoked your account to be suspended.
THey havee metrics and can tell when some clicks are "unnatural"...
I have worked on the fields of google Ads as publisher and also as Anouncer, and I found as an anouncer being scammed by fake clicks and had to report those sites that weren't bringing business to my company but where hurting my publishing budget. I'm NOT implying this is the case but it could explain a little the situation.
Costumer service is USELESS, Its a shame this company its bringing in so many $ and giving back so little...
Still in my company a good portion of our earnings nowadays comes from clients brough in by Google Adwords....so we have come dependant of them...
I hope this help some
Fernanda
From Mexico,
Fernanda- thank you for that information. I only made a post about the ads, since our readers were not used to seeing commercial ads on our blog for almost 4 years and I thought an explanation was in order.
You are probably right, though. Still, I think that they could have provided a little more customer service in order to help.
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